Andy Hunter

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Andy Hunter Freelance front & back end developer

React Node Javascript Laravel

Automating/optimizing business processes, Helping people reach their goals easier, Crafting engaging digital experiences, and Solving problems with code since 2012.

Image of Andy Hunter
2/7
Work

British Land Pitch Builder

Bringing property development in to the 21st century

The World around us is moving faster, and people expect relevant and up to date information to be more readily available than ever. Pitching investment opportunities in property development is no different.

Through a bespoke iPad presentation application, connected to an interactive, easy-to-use, drag and drop presentation building CMS system, we helped British Land keep their sales materials sharp and highly adaptable to rapidly changing market sentiments.

Client

dn&co

Date

Jan 2019 - June 2019

Task

Design/build presentation builder CMS/API

Tech stack

React/Laravel

Image of British Land Pitch builder on iPad screen
3/7
Work

IBM Cloud Data Services

Helping tech workers find software solutions

Cloud computing has become a vast and highly competitive industry, with each player in the market offering a wide range of products and solutions for a variety of problems. Identifying a suitable solution through the noise is a frequent frustration for developers and engineers.

We helped IBM deliver a better way of speaking to their potential customers through providing a clear, on-point way of helping developers find targeted solutions for their problems. The result was a kiosk/browser based interactive 3d world where viewers can identify their own path based on their role and common issues and walk them through to a product solution that might help them.

Client

IBM (via Purple Agency)

Date

Summer 2016

Task

Build site

Tech stack

Three.js (WebGL), Javascript, CSS, HTML

IBM CDS video first frame
4/7
Work

TravlNavi

Actually make those plans, book those flights, see the World

Travel has never been easier with the wealth of low cost flight/hotel options and accessibility to information and booking resources online. Less easy, is actually putting a travel plan together an acting on it. Keeping track of what you want to do and fitting everything to a required budget can be challenging. For bigger plans, it can be hard to keep all your notes together and organised to allow you to pull of that once in a lifetime trip.

TravlNavi helps you get there.

Link

Client

Own project

Date

2019

Task

Design/build front/back end

Tech stack

React/Node/MongoDB

a lovely picture
5/7
Work

Herogana

Learning to read Japanese made quick and easy

Learning Japanese can be a big challenge for English speakers. The nature of the whole language is somewhat opposite to English in its sounds, grammar, and writing system. In total, a Japanese learner will need to memorize over 2000 characters in order to be a relatively fluent reader. For those students actually living in Japan, it can at times seem overwhelming with so much unrecognisable text around them.

Thankfully, there is a way to take some of the pain away. Herogana gives beginner students an easy way to rapidly develop their recognition and fluency in the essential basics and apply their language skills in a native environment.

Link

Client

Own project

Date

2018/2019

Task

Design/build front/back end

Tech stack

React

a lovely picture
6/7

Clients

A selection of some of the clients I've had the privilege to work with over the years

  • British Land Logo
  • Mitie Logo
  • Vodafone Logo
  • Huawei Logo
  • IBM Logo
  • British Paralympics Association Logo
  • MSD Logo
  • Simply Health Logo
  • Hamilton Specialist Referrals Logo
7/7

Contact

I am currently available for work. I'm available to work on-site within 1 hour's commute from Basingstoke, or in Central London. I'm always happy to work remote, plus you'll get a discount on my rates for doing your bit for helping save the planet.

If you have a project you feel that I could help you with, then please email me at hunterwebdev[at]gmail.com.

If you can give a brief 1/2 paragraph description of what you would like me to help you with, along with a rough idea of how much you'd like to spend, and when you'd like it by, that will help me put together the right solution for your budget/needs/timeframe.

British Land Pitch Builder

“Speed is everything in the 21st century, and property development is no exception”

Client

dn&co

Date

Jan 2019 - June 2019

Task

Design/build presentation builder CMS/API

Tech stack

React/Laravel

As one of the largest real-estate development and investment firms in the UK in a highly competitive landscape, British Land wanted a way of delivering interactive, media rich presentations that can help differentiate them from their competitors. At the time I came on board with the project, dn&co had already furnished them with an iPad app that enabled them to do this, but a weakness of the application was that updates had to be done manually through a developer/graphic design team and larger updates could take potentially days or weeks to deploy to sales agents.

Having adjusted their sales operations to the new iPad application, British Land were keen to transform this application in to a software system where they can deliver instant content updates to their agents so that the pitch decks can stay ahead of rapidly changing market sentiment, and get the newest investment opportunities to their prospects in a shorter time frame.

In any highly competitive market, it is often the person quickest to market that takes the sale. With a large number of other development/investment firms offering similar, highly desirable investment opportunities to UK and international investors, it is critical that firms can slay the competition by capturing their prospects attention with ever more engaging, on point, and diverse investment opportunities.

dn&co and British Land logos
British Land Pitch builder on computer screens

When we looked at the current structure of the iPad application and content deployment strategy, we identified 2 areas that would help deliver massive cost/time savings.

The first area of improvement was to enable British Land's non-technical (i.e. not web developers) marketing team to be able to take a majority of the presentation management tasks in house. We achieved this through a browser based presentation builder application. By building this using React, we could have a highly interactive graphical user interface that enables British Land's staff to easily create and edit presentations.

The second area of improvement was to convert the existing data storage/deployment strategy to a robust content management system/API to power both the iPad app and presentation builder dashboard. Prior to implementing the CMS/API, the iPad application would be updated by a dedicated developer manually creating the new update data, and recompiling the iPad app. This was time consuming both in development time, and for the agents who would need to download large update files. By automating this process through the CMS/API, updates to the iPad app now take between seconds and minutes, and update data is compiled automatically without the need for developer intervention.

As part of enabling continuous improvement of British Land’s presentation materials, an analytics system was built in to the iPad application and CMS system. By reviewing a team or individual’s behaviour when presenting an investment opportunity, British Land are now better able to gauge which content is delivering the most value, and further streamline their presentations to engage with their audiences better. A secondary benefit is that an experienced agent’s pitch behaviour can be used as a model for trainee agents to use as a learning and development tool for their own sales methodology.

IBM Cloud Data Services

“Finding the right cloud software solution can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Let’s give people a magnet”

Client

IBM (via Purple Agency)

Date

Summer 2016

Task

Build site

Tech stack

Three.js (WebGL), Javascript, CSS, HTML

The cloud computing industry is huge, with large players such as Google and Amazon holding dominant portions of the market share. The cloud data landscape is a battle to claim and hold territory, and maintaining a market edge requires offering a range of software products to ensure that the developers using their platforms can get what they needed done effectively, efficiently, and securely.

A major challenge these companies face is getting developers to understand what their products do, and how it can help them. When a developer is looking for solutions, they are often confronted with a wall of noise consisting of an array of product names and detailed product information, and filtering through all this information can feel insurmountable. Changing infrastructure can be time consuming and expensive, and without understanding a clear benefit to making the change, many developers simply won’t bother unless a critical issue pushes them to do so.

Equally challenging is making it easy for financial controllers, who may not have deep technical knowledge, to be able to understand the benefits to justify the cost.

dn&co and British Land logos
Screenshot from IBM Smarter Cities game

IBM are no stranger to this situation. When we met the marketing manager for IBM’s Cloud Data Services division, he had a strategy in mind based on tackling this very issue in the past. One of IBM’s historical projects, Smarter Cities, was born out of a need to contextualise how IBM’s various products and solutions, such as cognitive computing and analytics, can help drive massive improvements to people’s everyday lives. For this, they had a flash powered game developed where players could go to various parts of a city and modify aspects of the city such as traffic control, environmental features such as lighting, and law enforcement using IBM powered services and observe the positive effects brought about through enhancing city infrastructure with cognitive computing. The game was a success, with a wide variety of audiences, from schools to businesses, praising how it made it clear how cognitive computing could be a driving force to a better future.

Using this as a model, we set out to create an interactive experience that could contextualise IBM’s Cloud Data Services so that both developers and financial controllers could understand a real-world application of a service and justify the money and time commitment to making the change to their existing infrastructure.

When coming up with solutions, IBM’s marketing manager was keen on the idea of another game, and although we were extremely tempted to do this (after all, it’s fun!), when we analysed the audience and the problem we were seeking to solve we decided against this. Developers aren’t known for their patience when looking for solutions. Developers rely on sources such as Q&A sites that target specific problems, and give direct solutions. Additionally, we felt that a game potentially diluted a developer’s case when presenting this to the financial controller; the financial controller wasn’t likely to play through a game to understand the cost/benefit of the solution.

Taking IBM’s requirement for interactivity, and using games as an influence, we came up with an interactive world where the audience could find their path, based on their job profile, and follow the path through to a targeted solution for their specific problem. Together with IBM, we studied the products IBM were offering, and their use cases, and identified three paths; a developer, a data scientist, and an IT architect. By selecting a path, you are presented with a choice of common challenges facing that profile, concluding with a targeted solution for each problem.

In order to create the interactive world we were seeking, we chose to use WebGL to create a 3d world for users to traverse through. Three.js, a WebGL library, was an ideal solution for our needs as it works across a wide variety of devices and browsers. As a result, we had a highly performant, interactive 3d world that the user could ‘walk’ through to follow their path to a solution. IBM premiered the solution using a kiosk during an industry event and it gave them a great way for prospective leads to quickly understand the benefits of their cloud services, and a targeted solution for them to discuss with the IBM representatives. Following on from the event, IBM used it for a number of months in their marketing campaigns to help cut through the noise of the cloud services market and help developers transition to IBM’s Cloud Data Services.

Animated gif of IBM Cloud Data Services site